Berlusconi down but not out after vote turnaround

Milan
Silvio Berlusconi
’s failed attempt to topple the Italian government has left him weaker than ever, zapped of the aura of invincibility that has surrounded him for two decades, as he faces the possible loss of his Senate seat and a ban from politics.

But it is unlikely to be his last act.

The 77-year-old three-times former prime minister staged one of Italy’s most stunning political plot twists in memory on Wednesday when he took the Senate floor at the last minute to announce that he would, after all, support Prime Minister
Enrico Letta
’s government in a confidence vote.

It was a face-saving measure that came after key loyalists in Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right party refused to follow his bid to collapse the coalition government as fallout over his tax-fraud conviction. The conviction carries a four-year prison sentence that endangers his role as a legislator.

“We have decided, not without internal strife, to vote in confidence," Mr Berlusconi said. Though he tried to look magnanimous, it was the billionaire media mogul’s first defeat within the party he founded and which has achieved electoral success largely through his personal appeal.

His retreat bestows a measure of stability on Mr Letta’s five-month-old left-right coalition, which won confidence votes in both houses and faces the daunting task of trying to revive Italy’s economy. And while Mr Berlusconi was left bruised and battered, political analysts argue he is not yet out of the picture.

“Berlusconi is not finished," said Roberto D’Alimonte of Rome’s LUISS University. “This is another step toward the end, but it is not the end yet. The end will come with a major electoral defeat.

“He has great resources. He has media resources, financial resources, the resources of the six or seven million voters who will follow him down the abyss. That is why he cannot be counted out, even with his options being closed."

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Whether Mr Berlusconi can ever again face the electorate is far from certain, because his judicial woes are narrowing his ability to manoeuvre.

Tax fraud appeals exhausted

His appeals over his tax fraud conviction were exhausted this summer, and he now faces a prison term, the loss of his Senate seat and a political ban that will bar him from running in new elections.

Mr Berlusconi’s theatrics – pushing for the government to fall, then saving it at the last minute – are a sign of the nervousness provoked by his judicial woes, said Giuseppe Orsina, a political scientist who has published a book about Mr Berlusconi’s influence in Italy.

“This is another paradox," Mr Orsina said. “It wasn’t in his interest to make the government fall, from the point of view of his companies, and it was not politically rational. It was rational in the protection of his honour . . . It was an act of political pride." Despite being weakened, Mr Orsina said, Mr Berlusconi “remains a protagonist in the political life. Today he suffered a defeat that is the first in the history of his party."

A Senate committee is due to vote in the coming days on whether to recommend stripping Mr Berlusconi of his seat after his conviction of tax fraud and its four-year sentence. A 2012 law bans anyone sentenced to more than two years in prison from holding or running for public office for six years.

Separately, a Milan appeals court will decide later this month on the exact length of a political ban, from one to three years, that was included alongside the four-year sentence in the tax fraud case.

Mr Berlusconi also must decide if he wants to serve his sentence — reduced to one year due to a general amnesty extended to first-time offenders — under house arrest or by performing social services, a choice that will impact his political reach.

Beyond that, Mr Berlusconi is appealing his seven-year sentence on a conviction of paying a minor for sex and forcing public officials to cover it up. That sentence, if confirmed, carries a lifetime political ban.

Naples prosecutors are also preparing charges against him for allegedly paying a lawmaker to pull support from a former government of ex-prime minister Romano Prodi, a move that seriously weakened that centre-left government.

Persecution claimed

Mr Berlusconi has claimed his innocence in all these cases, and alleged that he is being persecuted by elements in the judiciary.

Mr D’Alimonte said it was a foregone conclusion that Mr Berlusconi will lose his seat, sooner or later, due to his legal problems. “He would have lost his seat even without the government crisis, so nothing has changed," the analyst said.

It remains to be seen if the rift in Mr Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party that emerged over the confidence vote will heal or lead to a permanent fracture. Dissident lawmakers in the party have announced they will try to form a new parliamentary group, and Mr Berlusconi has previously said he will relaunch the original Forza Italia party that brought him to power.

The confidence vote delays the threat of new elections, at least for now: analysts don’t expect the centre-right to stop challenging the centre-left on policy.

Meanwhile, with Mr Berlusconi unlikely to be running in elections any time soon, his daughter Marina is being floated as a likely political successor.

“Marina can be competitive," Mr D’Alimonte said. “If Marina steps in, then Berlusconi is still in the fray. That is why I say only an election can put an end to the Berlusconi saga."